399, Mother-in-law summons
399, Mother-in-law summons
By May, princes began to arrive in Beijing.
The Ministry of Rites was responsible for receiving these princes who came to Beijing. This reception was mainly handled by Fu Lianxin.
However, there are a lot of things involved here, so Lu Mingfei will also ask about one or two.
The expenses for entertaining these princes were still allocated from their Ministry of Revenue. As the person who signed the appropriation, he should know where the money went.
There are also the expenses for the new emperor's coronation ceremony and several banquets, all of which cost money.
Although there has been some extra money in the household account since last year, their family is now large and has a lot of expenses.
Last year's major expenditures alone, as well as the money spent on spring plowing and sowing this year, were a considerable expense, and the little surplus money in the Ministry of Revenue was not enough for them to squander.
Only when you are in charge of a household do you know how expensive food, oil, salt and firewood are. After becoming the Minister of Revenue, Lu Mingfei wished he could break every ounce of silver into two halves to spend.
It's true that being in charge of a household is not easy. Managing a country's treasury is even more difficult.
Especially now, he not only has to take care of the affairs of the Ministry of Revenue, but also has a lot of things to do outside.
After these princes came to Beijing, they were not honest and caused trouble in the city every day.
For several days in a row, Zhao Lang looked very unhappy when he came back from outside.
Lu Mingfei knew a little about what was happening outside, but they couldn't do anything to these princes, so he could only coax the angry people.
"Don't be angry. I'll feel bad if you get angry."
"These guys are now sure that I can't do anything to them. If they really make me angry, I'll kill two of them as a warning to others!" Zhao Lang said gritting his teeth.
Of course, Lu Mingfei didn't dare actually ask Zhao Lang to kill the two princes as a token of respect. Even if he wanted to dampen the princes' spirit and resolve their problems, he had to wait until everything was finalized.
That night he listened to his Royal Highness the Regent scolding those princes for a long time, and he coaxed them for a long time before he finally calmed them down.
The next morning they got up from the same bed, and when they walked out the door they saw His Royal Highness the Regent and Minister Lu, each busy with their own affairs.
People outside only thought of him as a lackey of the Regent, though they didn't know he was actually the Regent's bedmate. Of course, such matters were best kept to themselves and would definitely not be publicized.
As for Prince Ding's father-in-law, he would never spread the news that his son liked men outside.
During the time that Prince Ding was in Beijing, Lu Mingfei had dealt with this father-in-law many times, but each time he failed to win his father-in-law's favor.
So much so that there were rumors outside that Prince Ding disliked him.
He just laughed it off and didn't respond. Because he didn't need his father-in-law's love, as long as Zhao Lang liked him, that was enough.
***
It was not until the end of May that Princess Ding brought her second son from Beijun to Kyoto Prefecture.
As for the other women in the backyard of Prince Ding's mansion and the concubines' sons and daughters, they did not come to the capital with Princess Ding.
On the day his mother and brother arrived in Beijing, Zhao Lang personally went out of town to pick them up. Lu Mingfei naturally accompanied Zhao Lang to pick up his mother-in-law and brother-in-law.
After receiving the call, he stood aside and watched Zhao Lang talking to his mother and brother.
When Princess Ding looked at him, Lu Mingfei bowed to his mother-in-law and said, "Your humble servant greets the princess."
Princess Ding just looked at him and said nothing.
It was obvious that Princess Ding remembered him.
However, Lu Mingfei didn't know whether Princess Ding knew about his relationship with Zhao Lang. He knew Zhao Lang hadn't told his mother about their relationship yet, but he didn't know whether Prince Ding had told his wife.
But when he saw the look on Princess Ding's face, he suspected that Prince Ding had already told his wife about their affair, or perhaps he had learned about it from some other source.
Zhao Lang reminded at the right time: "Mother, let's go into the city first."
"Yes." Princess Ding nodded and turned to get on the carriage behind her.
Zhao Hu didn't want to go back to the carriage and looked at his brother eagerly.
The two brothers looked at each other, and Zhao Lang finally pulled his younger brother onto the horse and rode with him.
The old maid who was serving in the carriage saw the two young masters riding on the same horse and said to the master sitting there, "Princess, the prince seems to like the young master very much."
"They are brothers, so it's natural for them to have a close relationship." Princess Ding said.
Looking at the back of her eldest son riding a horse, Princess Ding also saw the young official riding a white horse following behind her eldest son.
At this moment, she remembered the year when her eldest son just returned to Pingzhou City. She thought that her eldest son bought a house outside to accommodate the girl he liked, but when he sent someone to invite her, the person who came back was a man.
The man was Lu Mingfei, who was accompanying his eldest son.
There were things she hadn't considered carefully at first, but now that she was thinking about them, she realized something was amiss. No wonder her eldest son was always indifferent to the girls arranged by the family. So that's why. After realizing this, Princess Ding was deeply shocked.
In fact, Lu Mingfei guessed wrong about one thing. Princess Ding saw that the relationship between him and Zhao Lang was not simple. It was not told by someone, but as a mother, she saw it from her son.
That day, after he and Zhao Lang brought Princess Ding into the city, Zhao Lang took his mother and brother back to Prince Ding's Mansion, and he went back to the Ministry of Revenue to work.
However, two days later, Princess Ding sent someone to invite him.
Since his mother-in-law had invited him, Lu Mingfei couldn't refuse, so he had to follow the person who invited him out of the Ministry of Revenue to meet his mother-in-law.
This time, Princess Ding met him not in Prince Ding's mansion, but in a teahouse in the city. In the private room upstairs in the teahouse, he met his mother-in-law who was waiting for him.
Although she changed into ordinary clothes and did not wear so many precious gold and silver jewelries on her head, the mother-in-law's aura was not diminished at all even when she was sitting here.
After entering the box, he half-bowed and saluted his mother-in-law: "Your humble servant greets the princess."
However, when the mother-in-law saw him half-bowed, she had no intention of letting him stand up.
Without waiting for his mother-in-law to ask him to get up, Lu Mingfei counted to three in his mind and simply stood up.
Not surprisingly, as soon as he looked up, he was met with Princess Ding's cold face and angry eyes.
Before their master could say anything, the old maid at the side started to scold, "How dare you! The princess hasn't even told you to stand up yet, so why are you standing up? Do you even know how to behave?"
"I wonder why the princess asked me to come here?" Lu Mingfei did not respond to the servant's words. He looked at his mother-in-law who was sitting there and asked.
The two looked at each other.
Princess Ding also realized that the young man in front of her was not someone she could easily control.
"You guys go out first." Knowing that their subsequent conversation would not be known to too many people, Princess Ding waved to the servants in the room and asked everyone to go out.
"Yes, Princess." The old nanny responded and led everyone out.
After everyone else in the room had left and the door was closed from the outside, Princess Ding looked at the young man standing in front of her and asked, "What do you want in exchange for leaving Alang?"
"Princess, you might as well ask him this question. If he is willing to end his relationship with me, I will naturally be willing to leave." Lu Mingfei smiled and said.
Princess Ding frowned at the man who was still able to laugh, and asked, "You are a man, well-versed in the Four Books and Five Classics, and a top scholar, yet you are willing to be submissive to another man. Aren't you ashamed?"
"I like Zhao Lang, and Zhao Lang likes me too. What we do in bed is a matter of mutual consent and a natural outcome. Why should we be ashamed of it?" After standing for a while and feeling a little tired, Lu Mingfei simply found a place to sit down and slowly discuss the topic with his mother-in-law.
"You! You are so sharp-tongued and shameless!" Princess Ding was so angry that she cursed without thinking.
Just as she finished her curse, footsteps were heard outside, and the sound of her maid trying to stop people from opening the door was also heard.
"Meet the prince..."
"Your Highness, you can't..."
"Bang!"
However, the door of the box was still pushed open from the outside.
Princess Ding looked up and saw her eldest son standing outside the door with a gloomy face. The two of them exchanged glances, and she immediately saw the displeasure on her eldest son's face, knowing that he was angry.
Zhao Lang stepped over the threshold, entered the box, and looked at the young man who stood up.
The door of the box was closed from the outside, and there were only three of them in the room.
"Mother invited Mingfei to have tea, why didn't she call me?" Zhao Lang gestured to the standing young man to sit down. He sat down next to Lu Mingfei and asked his mother who was sitting there.
Lu Mingfei glanced at the mother and son sitting there. It would be a bit awkward for him to stand alone, so he quickly sat down.
This Princess Ding dared to provoke him to scold her, but it was obvious that in front of her own son, this Princess Ding's momentum was suddenly several heads lower.
Princess Ding looked at her eldest son without saying a word.
The atmosphere between the mother and son was very tense.
Under normal circumstances, Lu Mingfei might have spoken up to help the mother and son ease the tension. However, he had just been scolded by Princess Ding for being shameless, so he didn't want to help them this time and simply sat there in silence.
Zhao Lang looked at his mother sitting there and said in a normal voice, "Mother, since you are my mother, I will not bother with you about what happened today.
However, I hope you won’t look for Ming Fei privately in the future. He is my man, and if you scold him, you are scolding me.”
"Lang'er! Are you talking to me like this just for such an outsider?" Princess Ding looked at her eldest son in disbelief.
"Ming Fei is not an outsider."
Zhao Lang glanced at the young man beside him, then turned to look at his mother and said, "If you continue to treat Ming Fei with the same attitude as now, I will make a decision on the selection of the crown prince later."
"You!" This time it was Princess Ding's turn to be speechless. Author's words: Thank you Bole 9492239 (9492239) for your support, mua! To know more exciting content, please leave me a message on Liancheng Reading
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